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Then Matter is simply Alienism [the Principle of Difference]?
No: it is merely that part of Alienism which stands in
contradiction with the Authentic Existents which are
Reason-Principles. So understood, this non-existent has a certain
measure of existence; for it is identical with Privation, which
also is a thing standing in opposition to the things that exist
in Reason.
But must not Privation cease to have existence, when what has
been lacking is present at last?
By no means: the recipient of a state or character is not a state
but the Privation of the state; and that into which determination
enters is neither a determined object nor determination itself,
but simply the wholly or partly undetermined.
Still, must not the nature of this Undetermined be annulled by
the entry of Determination, especially where this is no mere
attribute?
No doubt to introduce quantitative determination into an
undetermined object would annul the original state; but in the
particular case, the introduction of determination only confirms
the original state, bringing it into actuality, into full effect,
as sowing brings out the natural quality of land or as a female
organism impregnated by the male is not defeminized but becomes
more decidedly of its sex; the thing becomes more emphatically
itself.
But on this reasoning must not Matter owe its evil to having in
some degree participated in good?
No: its evil is in its first lack: it was not a possessor (of
some specific character).
To lack one thing and to possess another, in something like equal
proportions, is to hold a middle state of good and evil: but
whatsoever possesses nothing and so is in destitution- and
especially what is essentially destitution- must be evil in its
own Kind.
For in Matter we have no mere absence of means or of strength; it
is utter destitution- of sense, of virtue, of beauty, of pattern,
of Ideal principle, of quality. This is surely ugliness, utter
disgracefulness, unredeemed evil.
The Matter in the Intellectual Realm is an Existent, for there is
nothing previous to it except the Beyond-Existence; but what
precedes the Matter of this sphere is Existence; by its alienism
in regard to the beauty and good of Existence, Matter is
therefore a non-existent.
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